Beyond Borders: Matthew Whoolery

A student, a teacher, and enthusiast of real-life interaction, Mathew Whoolery is, at the forefront, a professor of psychology and a self-established cultural explorer. But what drives his journey to self- and world knowledge is his unabated curiosity.

Prof. Whoolery was born in Washington State, USA, near Seattle, and partly raised in a small rural town near the Rocky Mountains in Utah. The latter US state is where he committed himself to tertiary education at Brigham Young University, where he studied psychology. At first, undertaken as one of the many side-step projects he would devote his free time and passion to, psychology became a life-long pursuit for Whoolery, who was originally headed to a more practice-based area in the field - counselling psychology.

“I was nearly done with my PhD in counselling psych, and I was driving home from work one day and contemplating what my career was going to look like, and I just felt horrified. ‘What if I get assigned to alcoholic wife beaters? I don't think I can sit with those people and try to help them,’” Prof. Whoolery said.

Taking a year off, Prof. Whoolery found himself drawn to teaching. He shifted to academia as well but never truly relinquished himself to it, choosing to create his PhD program in theoretical and philosophical psychology that would encapsulate his rich background in clinical psychology and his interest in culture, philosophy, and statistics.

“I have professor friends who eat a potato every day for lunch their whole careers. And I admire the ability to do the same thing over and over, digging in that one spot. I just can't do it. So my restlessness also makes it hard for me to sit still,” he said.

And sit still he most certainly does not. Prof. Whoolery has extensive experience in travelling, having visited and sometimes lived in countries like the UK, Ghana, Egypt, China, and Japan. Key among his passport’s stamps, however, seem to be the ones from Namibia and India, trips, which made him realise how Western-centric the discipline he was focusing on is. 

“We imagine that what we teach in psychology is what human beings are. But really, we teach about a very small group of people studying that very same small group of people. So I thought, how much of what I've studied has any relevance to these people? And I was like, practically nothing,” he said. 

Thus, Prof. Whoolery began to research different cultures’ psychology. Today, he incorporates their philosophies in his backpack of teaching materials for the “Cultural Psychology” courses he teaches. In addition to assembling a map of worldviews, Prof. Whoolery also collects masks from the places he travels to. The professor is interested in diving into their cultural significance and meaning. He shares that a common denominator between members of his collection is their function as warders against evil spirits. 

“If some evil spirit comes and looks in your house, they go 'Oh, there's already a demon in there.' So they don't come in,” Whoolery explained. “No evil spirits ever come into my house. Because I've got a whole wall of them, and they look in there, like, ‘Whoa, that guy's got a whole crowd!’”

His interest in masks overlaps with his desire to get to know the Kukeri traditions in Bulgaria, but this is not the reason he chose to come to AUBG. Upon the graduation of his youngest child in the US, Prof. Whoolery was pining for a change of scenery. 

“I came home and said, ‘Staying is not an option. I would rather go live in somebody's basement than stay where I am.’ So then it was just like, what is possible? And for me, the answer was: the whole world,” he said.

Originally unsure whether moving to Bulgaria was the right choice, Prof. Whoolery found something here, which was missing from the American culture he had been immersed in that mattered to him - connectedness. 

“In the States, everybody's always on their phones. Even in university, I would come from my office through this open atrium area with trees and a nice indoor seating area. You walk through there, and it's just dead silent. Not a single person talking to another,” he said.

Prof. Whoolery appreciates seeing Bulgarian people together, walking and talking, sitting down for a meal and actually looking at each other, being with one another regardless of age. As a cooking enthusiast, he also enjoys the food’s flavour here. He makes regular trips to Blagoevgrad’s farmers' market, where, in addition to picking up fruits and vegetables for his meals, he likes to converse with the merchants. 

“They're often very friendly. I don't speak their language very well. They don't speak mine. But we work it out. Sometimes with Google Translate,” the professor smiled.

As for plans, Prof. Whoolery admits he has none yet, believing it's better to let events play out - something he adopted as a practice from his study of the Chinese philosophy Taoism. 

“Taoism teaches you to let go and let things happen as they happen. And life will be a lot better if you do that than trying to make it what you think it should be. And so, I guess, I find myself in Bulgaria and I have no idea what it's going to be like and what part it will play in my life. I'll only know that when my life is over,” he said.

Editors: Vasil Paskov and David Mitov